Excerpt from "On the Equal or Unequal Sin of Eve and Adam" (1451)

Reprinted in Her Immaculate Hand: Selected Works
By and About The Women Humanists of Quattrocento Italy

Edited and translated by Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil Jr. Published in 1983

The Italian scholar Isotta Nogarola (1418–1466) is considered the first major female humanist. "Humanism" is the modern term for the intellectual movement that initiated the Renaissance. The humanist movement originated in Florence, Italy, in the mid-1300s and was introduced into other European countries shortly before 1500. Humanist scholars believed that a body of learning called studia humanitatis (humanistic studies), which was based on the literary masterpieces from the classical period of ancient Greece and Rome, could bring about a cultural rebirth, or renaissance. The texts included not only classical literature but also the...